Floral Buds
by Kelandra Surisha
Summary: Before her death, Lily regretted very little in her life, but there was always one thing that she regretted, her relationship with her sister. This is a story from her POV about her love for her dear sister.


Hi guys! This is a new story, written from Lily's POV about herself and her dear sister Petunia. This is kind of sad, you are forwarned.  
Oh and yadda yadda yadda, I don't own Harry Potter or anyone else, blah blah blah.  
Please read and review. :-)

Floral Buds  
By Kelandra Surisha

I can remember a time when we used to pick flowers. I can remember it because the scent still clings with me wherever I go. All I have to do is close my eyes and take in the soft scent of the roses, petunias, day lilies, daffodils, orchids and daises. The memory still amazes me, even though a decade has passed.

We were young then, young and free. I was older by a single year and daddy's little girl. He held out his hand to me, not that you minded, you still had Mum who fussed night and day with you perfect light brown locks and skin and bones appearance. You were supposed to be perfect; you were going to be the perfect daughter, the perfect wife.

I was the one who was told to go out, see the world, feel the wind through my bright red hair and taste the rain running rivers down my pale cheeks. You were supposed to stay inside and learn to sew, learn to clean and knit and cook. Sometimes I wonder if that's where the resentment came from.

No, I know its not. Now that I look back to it, I can see it in my mind. Remember those summer days when Mum went to Manchester to visit her sister and Dad would take us out to the park? I'm sure you try to forget it but I know you can't, I can't at least. There was only a year difference between to two of us, but it didn't matter, we were sisters, that's all that mattered. I can still see Dad upon the small bench laughing as we picked at the flower petals and the buds that had refused to open. We dug from the earth one of each flower, buds and all, before spring had truly unearthed their beauty and planted them in the garden, we said it was for Mum but really it was for us. We planted the petunia and the red lily beside each other, to symbolize our togetherness, our friendship and our love.

You used to read to me from your story books when Mum gave you time from your chores. You loved those story books. You'd read to me about dragons and fairies, wizards and goblins, princes and princesses. It was magical for you, talking of fantasy and dreaming of what it would be like to have those powers. I didn't much care for the stories; they weren't really real now, were they? Magic wasn't real.

We continued on this way for years, up until I turned eleven. Soon after my eleventh birthday at the end of July, the 31st to be precise, a peculiar owl perched on our doorstep and placed a peculiar letter through the mail slot. It was addressed to me, and it went this way:

_Lily Evans  
Second bedroom to the right up the stairs  
429 West Hope Street  
London_

It didn't make sense and Mum and Dad didn't understand. I pulled out the letter, though Mum felt I shouldn't open it, but Dad insisted I did. I pulled at the wax seal, breaking it away and opening the yellowed envelope with strange yellowed parchment that felt dusty and crisp to the touch. It felt as if it were bended it would crack. I unfolded the precise crease that seamed to be folded with complete precision and read the opening lines.

_Dear Miss Evans,  
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for the upcoming September 1971 semester._

I looked at Mum and Dad quizzically. Mum thought it was all a joke but Dad didn't believe that. I can still remember the sparkle in your eyes as I read out the rest of the letter to you later that night. The next morning Dad took me to downtown on the subway to go to the place that we were told to go according to the letter, a place called the Leaky Cauldron. Mum had tried to get us not to go, insisting this was abnormal nonsense but that didn't matter, Dad still took me. You wanted to go along but Mum wouldn't let you. I told you next year when you got your letter you could go too.

It was all real, this was real. I went to Hogwarts September 1st, 1971, met James and Sirius, Remus and Peter. I told you about them in the letters I would send home with a borrowed owl. We couldn't afford much, our little family, but we made due.

Mum never answered my owls, Dad and you would always right back.

Mum thought I was a freak and no doubt tried to teach you that. I doubt Dad did. Dad taught us to look everyone in the eye and be kind to all. That was hard especially to James and Sirius who stuck a spider up my sleeve and a snake up my leg on the train ride to school. You were my rock, they were so mean and I'd send you a letter almost every night telling you about it. You'd right back the next day and tell me all the things you planned on doing to them next year when you'd come along. You would do what the witches and wizards in your story books did to bad guys and it made me feel better.

That summer I spent all my time telling you about what to expect during your first year at Hogwarts, what Professor Sprout was like and the exciting Professor Binns, our ghost professor of the History of Magic. Also young Professor McGonagall, the slightly peevish and shy transfigurations professor, she'd been around for a little while but was quite kind and shy still.

As July 31st neared we were buzzing with excitement. You even started to ignore some of Mum's badgering about you housework and patching skills. You told her when you were a witch you could go what you pleased not sit at home sewing stitches. Mum was not happy.

But that didn't matter because Mum was happy when August 1st rolled around. On July 31st we'd sat at the door since midnight waiting for your letter. At midnight on August 1st we stopped. We still waited though, keeping a keen eye on the door during our passing chores or activities, maybe they'd written the wrong number and scared out poor peculiar neighbor.

But school drew nearer and I had to go back. When September 1st rolled around we'd given up. I said it was a mistake, don't you remember? You cried into Dad's arm. I contemplated writing a fake letter to make you smile addressed as so:

_Petunia Evans  
First bedroom to the right up the stairs  
429 West Hope Street  
London_

But I knew it would never work.

That was the year Dad got sick. He couldn't work and didn't play. Mum raised you, and without Dad to make you smile Mum's logic worked its way into you. You were bitter with me for going to Hogwarts without you. You didn't answer my owl except for at Christmas when the family wrote me a letter saying that it was probably best if I stayed there because Dad was really very sick and Aunt Cassandra was coming to visit and she didn't like abnormalities, I namely being a witch.

I came back the next summer and I asked you to read to me from your story books. I'd missed them so. You told me to read them myself but I really shouldn't bother, story books were for children, not for ladies.

You were Mum's little girl all right and I was the freak. You thought Mum was proud of me, no, she pretended to be when Dad was there. The world to you was taking care of Dad like Mum told you to.

I lost you Petunia; I knew it when I came home after fifth year. The world had changed that year. I'd grown up. I wasn't dependent on you for comfort, Professor Binns became dull to me after five years of him (the mysticism of a ghost didn't really entertain me anymore), Professor McGonagall became more bold as James, Sirius, Remus and Peter (called the Marauders amongst there close friends) played more pranks on her and around the school and I became a prefect. Professor Dumbledore, the headmaster, found that I possessed the abilities of an excellent young witch and leadership abilities, like the women in your story books. You were more resentful about that.

When I came home after fifth year you had a new group of friends. You had a normal boyfriend, Vernon Dursely, a boy with a perfectly normal mannerism, perfectly normal name and perfectly normal clothes. He was by all means perfectly normal. You didn't let me meet him, only Mum did. Dad was sick which wasn't normal and I by no means was normal. No one in the family had bright red hair and bright green eyes; it was too bold, not that I chosen my coloration or anything, which was genetics, not magic.

Magic, you didn't say the word. If anyone said that word you would say it didn't exist. You convinced yourself I went to a perfectly normal all girls school somewhere in northern England and Mum had sent me there for my perfectly normal studies. It was very strange in deed for me.

As the years passed by, things became stranger for me. James became a lovely boy, very sweet to me and cared for me. I finally gave him the time of day and we fell in love in our seventh and final year. I was the Head Girl of Hogwarts and James the Head Boy. McGonagal became hard nosed and went after the Marauders and I (the new honorary member because I was the girlfriend of the leader of the group, my lovely James) whenever she got the chance if we were doing something wrong, her House (Gryffindor) or not. She didn't put up with anything from any students anymore. I actually started to drift off in Professor Binn's classes which used to be my favorite because he was a mysterious ghost but now his monotonous tone (which I'm convinced bored him to death which is why he is no longer alive). Everything was different from when I had first come.

Dad came to my graduation, sick and all. You and Mum never came, which didn't surprise you. I head you'd become a very good seamstress at school and were going to sew your own wedding dress. You had one more year left of school and Vernon had just graduated when I did. You two were to be married right after you graduated.

I didn't hear anymore about you. James and I got a flat at the north end of London two buildings down from Sirius and Remus' (the two didn't have anywhere else to go but live with each other after James and I left) and Peter chose to stay with his poor mother. I didn't even communicate with Dad anymore, he soon passed away after your eighteenth birthday and shortly, I discovered, after your wedding. I hadn't been invited and it turns out Dad had left me in his will that's why I was invited to Dad's funeral. I met your perfectly normal plump husband and you met my abnormal, skinny but toned fiancé with wild untamable ebony hair, black wired glasses and chestnut eyes. You could pick James out of any crowd, Vernon fit right in.

It's been only a month since then, since you were forced to tell Vernon about your abnormal sister and her abnormal fiancé. But that's okay, because right now I'm writing up invitations to my abnormal wedding. Very few muggles are going, I doubt Mum will go (she's not been feeling well since Dad died, she has no one to take care of now and I can see the years setting in on her features). James told me that if you made me so sad I shouldn't invite you.

I'm looking at the lily and petunia right now. I dug them out of our little garden after Dad's funeral, they weren't surviving. The petunia has budded this year but wont bloom, the lily has bloomed. I wonder if that's like you and me, I've kept going and you're far behind, putting on Mum's slippers and apron and taking on her job.

I close my eyes again as I feel the tears roll down my cheeks. I miss you.

The scent of the flower petals over whelms me like the ocean's waves during the calm afternoon. I can remember when we got those flowers those many years ago. I can tell it was only this year you stopped attending to them; they would have died long ago had you not. That gives me some comfort.

I seal the last envelope with red wax and a seal with engraved "J.L." in it for James and Lily encircled with lilies and roses. Tears are coursing down my cheeks as I lift my quill to write down the last name. James has his hand on my shoulder and kisses me neck softly to remind me he's still here.

I give the letter to his snow white owl, Hedwig, who takes off delicately into the afternoon sun which she hates. She's delivering the last invitation. It's to someone I love but I know will never come. It's to someone who used to love me just as I love her. It's to someone with dreams and hopes and aspirations that meant everything to a tiny world that was just between two people. The invitation is to someone whom I would give almost everything up just to have beside me again. It's to someone whom I've asked to be my maid of honor but will never accept. It's to someone who will never come and will never want to.

The invitation is to you.


End file.
